As Queen Elizabeth slowly dies, Puritans and Papists play a deep game of deception.
A plot is already afoot to unseat her principal advisor, Sir Robert Cecil. Therefore merchant-constable Matthew Stock, who considers Sir Robert his master, becomes a principal pawn. He is lured to the scene of a heinous murder – and the bloody knife next to the body turns out to be his own.
The crime calls for the penalty of death. Only Joan, Matthew’s wife, is able to save his neck from the gallows. That is, until the plotters, having bested Sir Robert and Matthew, turn their wicked attentions toward her – aiming to rid themselves of the one body who stands in their way…